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Fake it till you make it: the wolves of Instagram

386 points by kawera 9y ago

eksemplar 9y ago
Maybe it’s time the EU took a look at advertising. I mean, we’re building things like the GDPR and a lot of legislation to protect minors from the dangers that come from social media. We see loot boxes, underage gambling, traders selling you recommendations for their own products, scammers, young people prostitute them selves to get photo shoots at exotic locations or for luxurary stuff for likes. Probably worse than that too, and at the heart of it is advertising and how it makes money on popularity, lies and knowing every about everyone. Popularity will always be worth money to someone, but the current business practices surrounding it just don’t seem healthy.
- gowld 9y ago
  Or it's not time, because we don't want sex workers' livelihoods destroyed by Puritanical nanny states.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  For whatever reason, the EU has never been terribly interested in regulating advertising; that's nearly all national agencies, and varies greatly by country (some of the Nordics ban a lot of advertising to kids, say).
- 21 9y ago
  > young people prostitute them selves to get photo shoots at exotic locations or for luxurary stuff for likes So what's the alternative, working 9-5 in retail for minimum wage and after 10 years you are still nowhere? Unless you are in a highly demanded domain like software, there are few opportunities for young people.
  - simonbarker87 9y ago
    The alternative is genuine entrepreneurship or working your butt off in school in an area that is actually in demand rather than a pointless degree. There seems to be an assumption now that everyone is entitled to a nice cushy lifestyle but if you don’t work in school, don’t develop in demand skills or find a gap in the market to exploit then it’s not going to happen.
    - lovich 9y ago
      Ah shit, that was my mistake, I didn't just pick an in demand niche that no one else had already identified and filled. Good thing I had this safety net to fall on after I spent my savings that took me 30 years to build up to make an attempt on a business. As it stands in the US currently if you don't receive help from your parents or some other rich connection, the average person is winning the lottery if they start a business and succeed. There is nothing between you and homelessness if you don't have the business succeed, and any sort of health problem will nuke what savings you have immediately
      - asdffdsa321 9y ago
        Yeah, seems like wealth is generally created over generations, rather than lifetimes (common case might be something like: 0 - 1 your grandparents immigrate and work hard to survive, 1-10 your parents work hard to go from subsistence to middle class, 10 - 100 you have enough safety net to take risks/follow passions/start successful bussinesses). Of course there's always exceptions.
    - germinalphrase 9y ago
      ...or wages have simply not kept up with inflation. I'm a high school teacher in a state that has a teacher shortage (and yet performs at toward the top of the national rankings). I'm good at my job - do it because it matters in a way that most jobs don't - and have rapidly moved up into the best districts in the state. In demand isn't always the issue. My take home pay is 27k. Teaching is obviously in the news lately for pay concerns - but this hollowing out of wages is across the board.
  - madeofpalk 9y ago
    I mean, that's only because you/we romanticise our industry. What a bizarre false dichotomy. Literal prostitution, retail job, or software development. There are plenty of others out there that are needed that people work in. Become an apprentice, learn a trade, and start business. Work in retail, become a manager, own a location, climb the ranks. Get a finance degree, work at a firm, create a consultancy.
    - savanaly 9y ago
      That all sounds hard.
      - madeofpalk 9y ago
        Yeah, whodathunkit? Being successful involves effort
      - leetcrew 9y ago
        becoming a manager in retail is really not that hard. most of my friends that started working retail in high school are managers by now (unless they left for a better job).
        upvotinglurker 9y ago
        Yup. One of my high school classmates was an assistant manager at the Burger King where we worked as soon as he graduated high school.
  - maerF0x0 9y ago
    > Unless you are in a highly demanded domain like software, there are few opportunities for young people. If you mean old style "Jobs", correct. If you mean opportunity to impact the world and get paid for it, nonsense. There has never been a time that it has been so easy to 1) Reach millions/billions of people (Internet), 2) Raise money (kickstarter, VC/startup culture), 3) learn about something for free (MOOCs), 4) bring a real product to market (Amazon fulfillment) . The only thing missing is real ideas and the work ethic to use 1-4.
philfrasty 9y ago
Guy they chose seems like a bad example. - 30k on insta (since 2014): instagram.com/elijah_oezz - 3k on YouTube youtube.com/channel/UCk4fZzhD8fStRHITL4sP_LA - 0 comments on any of his pics Forex trading is certainly big on SM but this guy does not convert a single visitor.
- overcast 9y ago
  That's because his "followers" are just all fake crap accounts, or people who follow because he's using a bot to follow/unfollow them. Doubtful any of them are willingly paying attention to him. Just look at the wild swings on both sides, as Instagram cleans up the fake accounts. https://socialblade.com/instagram/user/elijah_oezz/monthly https://socialblade.com/instagram/user/elijah_oezz/monthly
- thvu1k 9y ago
  Great find, thanks for noticing. He probably bought most of them to "fake it" until he (probably) makes it.
- jahlove 9y ago
  He has comments disabled on instagram.
  - justme00 9y ago
    Hah. It baffles me that they still gave him the honor of mentioning him in that article. Free publicity to the fake.
    - throwawaybo 9y ago
      He's doing affiliate marketing, it's jackpot for him :/
  - optimuspaul 9y ago
    Of course he does, doesn't want the people he's burned to comment.
  - 9y ago
neaden 9y ago
One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said that he has had people come up to him and tell him that Gordon Gekko inspired them to get into finance, so it's not surprising that Belfort is now inspiring a new generation.
- gowld 9y ago
  Fight Club gets a lot of retroactive flak now that people know how they were "supposed" to read it. The book was a dramatization of the way young men feel about life. If the author and book had any valid insight, then of course young men would identify with the "bad" lifestyle in the movie, and not suddenly turn into old men while watching the movie. The movie is entirely showing the fantasy from the "vapid" perspective. It does nothing in itself to destroy the fantasy except at the very end where it shows "maybe it's possible to take this too far?"
  - ObeyTheGuts 9y ago
    da fuck its about crazy consumerism and getting real, and real works. Its exagerated, but nothing of what u say.
  - optimuspaul 9y ago
    I think the problem with Fight Club could be that the movie changed the ending just enough that the message was lost. In the book is was more obvious what the message was.
  - Nexxxeh 9y ago
    Wasn't the message of Fight Club ostensibly anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, the exact opposite of the lifestyle of #richkidsofinstagram ?
    - 9y ago
TaylorGood 9y ago
I know of a guy who “pivoted” from exotic car rental operator in Florida to Forex and Drop Shipping coach via Instagram. His Lamborghini, chartered jets and 30k followers really shine but I also know he still buys fake shoes. Wouldn’t trust him with $1. Gary Vaynerchuk is spot on in that there are too many experts and not enough practicioners. Showing others how to make it is how these guys are trying to make it.
- gowld 9y ago
  I don't think we need more "practitioners" of Forex day-trading and Drop-Shipping arbitrage.
  - TaylorGood 9y ago
    Agreed. Just generally focus attached to substance.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  > Showing others how to make it is how these guys are trying to make it. You don't actually have to know how to make 30K/month. You just have to have enough people watch your video and sign up to buy your $9.99 ebook. The infomercial is 24/7 now. Kevin Trudeau forever, man! /s
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I'll show you how to make €100,000+ per month, just buy my ebook with monthly subscription to my "WWWinners!!11one Club" it's €100,000 per month. Bargain!
- giarc 9y ago
  I suspect many of these people touting their nearly purchased Lamborghini and the like are actually just renting them. There was a reddit post where a similar "influencer" described the process of faking the purchase. He would go to a showroom and ask to sit in the vehicle and film it. Most of the time, if the salesperson isn't busy they will let you do this. Sometimes even let you start it if they are nice. This influencer would just then record a conversation in another car about buying and taking delivery etc and dub over the video of him in a show room. Pretty straight forward.
fwn 9y ago
This article describes essentially rough influencers that use their social media marketing capabilities to fuel pyramid schemes with cheap high-risk financial products as their fig-leaf. While selling those products is regulated in many markets they apparently seem to get around that through obscurity.
throwawaybo 9y ago
Throwaway because reasons. Worked for one the biggest - and most "respectable" player in this "industry". Between terrible security practices - had to fight for basic stuff that would make any of you grab pitchforks, attempts to get away with as much as they could with regards to regulation and finally the terrible ethics of the system, I didn't last long. Consider spending a few minutes reading this great article https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-vast-amoral-binary-options-scam-exposed/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels... Most of the big players might have moved away from binary options, they're still the same morally corrupt drain on society.
- throwawaybo 9y ago
  Also the revenue figures seem quite conservative. 90M seems too low. Probably 2x that.
foobaw 9y ago
Reminds me of the show Billions.
baxtr 9y ago
There was a very interesting post on that topic just a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16953005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16953005
amorphous 9y ago
Slightly OT, but for the rest of us "fake it till you make it" is terrible advice. Because if you don't make it, you have lived a fake life and this will eat on you.
- gowld 9y ago
  Only if you can't maintain emotional separation. Actors, Doctors, and Lawyers, all legitimate respectable honest jobs, require workers to maintain emotional separation from their work.
- triangleman 9y ago
  Actually the proverb is sort of short for "have courage through the difficult part and you will be successful in one way or the other". It's not about being fake. The OP title, though, is a play on the term, referring to actual fakeness.
chinathrow 9y ago
Was looking over the shoulders of a guy seting up instagram auto likes via a 3rd party tool the other day. No value added there.
dzonga 9y ago
Nothing new! Same as the Crypto bubble / hype. Seen many people ploughing money because they wanna get rich quick. All because bitcoin or *coin is going up & 'blockchain'.
- Nursie 9y ago
  Some of the folks in the article are setting themselves up as "Cryptocurrency Gurus" now too. sigh.
Bucephalus355 9y ago
>”I’m never going to work for someone,” Oyefeso says in one of his videos, in a somewhat cartoonish, nasal voice, while he drives his Rolls dressed in a bathrobe.” What’s with this obsession of not working for someone else? American/British managers in particular are some of the most democratic and “least power distance” bosses out there, especially compared to other countries where there is still a very hierarchical management structure. The only time I ever hear now seriously about “your boss is horrible time to quit and start your own business!” or “time to escape cubicle nation!” is with someone selling a particular product.
- kradeelav 9y ago
  American individualism, I suspect - part of how deeply rooted that mindset is in all the different strata of classes. Proving that you can make it on your own, especially with how "equalizing" social media is on the surface (everyone has an account, the only limit is how you portray yourself!) is a pretty tempting goal to go after for some folks.
- _carl_jung 9y ago
  > What’s with this obsession of not working for someone else? > someone selling a particular product. You answered your own question.
- Nursie 9y ago
  Honestly, I don't want to work for someone else, and I've ended up as a consultant/contractor who provides a service on the basis of a completely equal footing with the client. I find it far preferable to being a standard employee, I get more control and usually more respect. Plus, everyone knows it's just a gig, not your life.
- RIMR 9y ago
  That all depends on what you do. If you have a specific skillset, and your talents and work ethic are obvious to your managers, you can end being mostly self-managed at your job. However, if you have no skills and work a job where your raw output is all that matters, managers will breathe down your neck trying to get the most output out of you as possible. These get-rich-quick schemes prey on those unskilled workers. They promise a world where you have no boss, only work a few hours a week, and make enough money to afford whatever you want. It preys on people's fantasies, and their lack of understanding of how successful people get where they are. If you want to escape your cubicle farm and get a job where you don't hate your boss, teach yourself a valuable skill and seek gainful employment using that skill. But don't ever expect that there's some magic lifehack that let's you stop working and make enough money to afford every luxury you ever wanted. Just because there are some examples of people doing that doesn't mean anything. For every Bitcoin millionaire there are ten Bitcoin bankruptcies. Yet all people have to do is wave around "This is the next big thing", and gullible people will swarm it in hopes of getting in on the ground floor. There's big money in FOMO.
BadassFractal 9y ago
The guy is a small fry. If we're going to point fingers at someone, can we start all the way at the top with someone like Tai Lopez?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sodafountan 9y ago
  The difference is that Tai Lopez is just selling knowledge, no different than an audiobook or a college program. The guy in this article is actively participating in a pyramid scheme.
  - swiss_beatz 9y ago
    Did you know the "knowledge" thing is a meme? Google Tai Lopez Knowledge
vwcx 9y ago
I was hoping, based on the title, that this was going to address the exploding popularity of people starting IG accounts for their huskies and then claiming the animals are part-wolf. This is a real phenomenon with (albeit smaller) consequences.
- bayological 9y ago
  LOL
RIMR 9y ago
I am always amazed by how many people get into this "Beat the system and make tons of money" mindset. If there's anything that has proven itself time and time again, it's that people who seek immediate wealth, and who fantasize about their "million dollar idea", are absolutely not the kinds of people who become successful and wealthy. The people who become devoted to a field or a technology - who make the business their passion, and focus on filling a need - these are the people who earn a fortune. You can't just make money by trying really hard to be rich, unless, of course, your business model is funneling cash off of suckers with a predatory get-rich-quick scheme.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Carnegie and Buffett occur to me as counter-examples that you need to devote yourself to a specific field or technology.
  - RIMR 9y ago
    They are the exception, not the rule. Besides, they technically devoted themselves to the field of finance. They didn't just decide one day that they wanted to be billionaires and only work 1 hour per week. They worked their asses off to get where they are today, and the goal wasn't even necessarily to make a fortune...
  - espeed 9y ago
    Buffett's field of study is the finance and economic system. It should be easy to see that one of the things that separates Warren Buffett from the rest of us is that he has a unique perspective of the financial world – he sees all of the dynamics and intricacies of the financial world in a way that few others do. It took years for him to build the mental framework that led to his deep understanding and unique view of the world. And as a result of his devotion to this pursuit and his willingness to immerse himself in it, he developed the structural underpinning for the mental vista that yields the rare and valuable perspective that enables him to see the financial world with the clarity of a composer likely unattained by anyone in history. This is why Goldman Sachs calls him when they need help, like they did in the financial crisis.
bomb199 9y ago
When you realize that legitimately becoming rich is such a long shot no matter how great you do, the idea of cheating becomes alluring. Helps if you keep in mind that Jeff Bezos could accidentally tip you enough money to live the rest of your life without a job.
- skellera 9y ago
  On a 8% average, Bezos makes over $8 billion a year (He has been making more than that). Considering there are 2,208 billionaires according to Forbe's, that is mind blowing that he gains more wealth every year than all but about 2000 people alive HAVE.
swframe2 9y ago
Why worry about the small fish? See how the big boys do it. Check out "The China Hustle" and "Dirty Money" on netflix.
1181207 9y ago
A lot of influencers revolve around the fashion industry on Instagram, Who are contacted by streetwear brands and Designer Labels such as Vetements, Balenciaga and OFF-WHITE... Solely using influencers has pretty much pushed their lines into the eyes of consumers and it's a really good way of getting people to take notice of your business.
_bxg1 9y ago
The number of layers of meaninglessness at play in being a fraudulent media influencer who pretends to be rich so they can make a buck off of selling artificial bets against the abstract perceived value of companies which employ the people who (in some cases) spend their time doing actual real things is staggering.
arlindi06546 8y ago
Hack instagram
arlindi06546 8y ago
Instagram hack

386 points by kawera 9y ago

Maybe it’s time the EU took a look at advertising. I mean, we’re building things like the GDPR and a lot of legislation to protect minors from the dangers that come from social media. We see loot boxes, underage gambling, traders selling you recommendations for their own products, scammers, young people prostitute them selves to get photo shoots at exotic locations or for luxurary stuff for likes. Probably worse than that too, and at the heart of it is advertising and how it makes money on popularity, lies and knowing every about everyone. Popularity will always be worth money to someone, but the current business practices surrounding it just don’t seem healthy.

gowld 9y ago
Or it's not time, because we don't want sex workers' livelihoods destroyed by Puritanical nanny states.
rsynnott 9y ago
For whatever reason, the EU has never been terribly interested in regulating advertising; that's nearly all national agencies, and varies greatly by country (some of the Nordics ban a lot of advertising to kids, say).
21 9y ago
> young people prostitute them selves to get photo shoots at exotic locations or for luxurary stuff for likes So what's the alternative, working 9-5 in retail for minimum wage and after 10 years you are still nowhere? Unless you are in a highly demanded domain like software, there are few opportunities for young people.
- simonbarker87 9y ago
  The alternative is genuine entrepreneurship or working your butt off in school in an area that is actually in demand rather than a pointless degree. There seems to be an assumption now that everyone is entitled to a nice cushy lifestyle but if you don’t work in school, don’t develop in demand skills or find a gap in the market to exploit then it’s not going to happen.
  - lovich 9y ago
    Ah shit, that was my mistake, I didn't just pick an in demand niche that no one else had already identified and filled. Good thing I had this safety net to fall on after I spent my savings that took me 30 years to build up to make an attempt on a business. As it stands in the US currently if you don't receive help from your parents or some other rich connection, the average person is winning the lottery if they start a business and succeed. There is nothing between you and homelessness if you don't have the business succeed, and any sort of health problem will nuke what savings you have immediately
    - asdffdsa321 9y ago
      Yeah, seems like wealth is generally created over generations, rather than lifetimes (common case might be something like: 0 - 1 your grandparents immigrate and work hard to survive, 1-10 your parents work hard to go from subsistence to middle class, 10 - 100 you have enough safety net to take risks/follow passions/start successful bussinesses). Of course there's always exceptions.
  - germinalphrase 9y ago
    ...or wages have simply not kept up with inflation. I'm a high school teacher in a state that has a teacher shortage (and yet performs at toward the top of the national rankings). I'm good at my job - do it because it matters in a way that most jobs don't - and have rapidly moved up into the best districts in the state. In demand isn't always the issue. My take home pay is 27k. Teaching is obviously in the news lately for pay concerns - but this hollowing out of wages is across the board.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  I mean, that's only because you/we romanticise our industry. What a bizarre false dichotomy. Literal prostitution, retail job, or software development. There are plenty of others out there that are needed that people work in. Become an apprentice, learn a trade, and start business. Work in retail, become a manager, own a location, climb the ranks. Get a finance degree, work at a firm, create a consultancy.
  - savanaly 9y ago
    That all sounds hard.
    - madeofpalk 9y ago
      Yeah, whodathunkit? Being successful involves effort
    - leetcrew 9y ago
      becoming a manager in retail is really not that hard. most of my friends that started working retail in high school are managers by now (unless they left for a better job).
      - upvotinglurker 9y ago
        Yup. One of my high school classmates was an assistant manager at the Burger King where we worked as soon as he graduated high school.
- maerF0x0 9y ago
  > Unless you are in a highly demanded domain like software, there are few opportunities for young people. If you mean old style "Jobs", correct. If you mean opportunity to impact the world and get paid for it, nonsense. There has never been a time that it has been so easy to 1) Reach millions/billions of people (Internet), 2) Raise money (kickstarter, VC/startup culture), 3) learn about something for free (MOOCs), 4) bring a real product to market (Amazon fulfillment) . The only thing missing is real ideas and the work ethic to use 1-4.

philfrasty 9y ago

Guy they chose seems like a bad example. - 30k on insta (since 2014): instagram.com/elijah_oezz - 3k on YouTube youtube.com/channel/UCk4fZzhD8fStRHITL4sP_LA - 0 comments on any of his pics Forex trading is certainly big on SM but this guy does not convert a single visitor.

overcast 9y ago
That's because his "followers" are just all fake crap accounts, or people who follow because he's using a bot to follow/unfollow them. Doubtful any of them are willingly paying attention to him. Just look at the wild swings on both sides, as Instagram cleans up the fake accounts. https://socialblade.com/instagram/user/elijah_oezz/monthly https://socialblade.com/instagram/user/elijah_oezz/monthly
thvu1k 9y ago
Great find, thanks for noticing. He probably bought most of them to "fake it" until he (probably) makes it.
jahlove 9y ago
He has comments disabled on instagram.
- justme00 9y ago
  Hah. It baffles me that they still gave him the honor of mentioning him in that article. Free publicity to the fake.
  - throwawaybo 9y ago
    He's doing affiliate marketing, it's jackpot for him :/
- optimuspaul 9y ago
  Of course he does, doesn't want the people he's burned to comment.
- 9y ago

neaden 9y ago

One thing I've been struck by with movies and films like the Wolf of Wall Street, the film Wall Street, Fight Club, or even the Great Gatsby is how many people end up coming away with the exact opposite message of the movie. They end up idolizing the vapid, shallow lifestyle that the movie is critiquing, because even though the film is critiquing that it can't help but also make it glamorous. Michael Douglas has said that he has had people come up to him and tell him that Gordon Gekko inspired them to get into finance, so it's not surprising that Belfort is now inspiring a new generation.

gowld 9y ago
Fight Club gets a lot of retroactive flak now that people know how they were "supposed" to read it. The book was a dramatization of the way young men feel about life. If the author and book had any valid insight, then of course young men would identify with the "bad" lifestyle in the movie, and not suddenly turn into old men while watching the movie. The movie is entirely showing the fantasy from the "vapid" perspective. It does nothing in itself to destroy the fantasy except at the very end where it shows "maybe it's possible to take this too far?"
- ObeyTheGuts 9y ago
  da fuck its about crazy consumerism and getting real, and real works. Its exagerated, but nothing of what u say.
- optimuspaul 9y ago
  I think the problem with Fight Club could be that the movie changed the ending just enough that the message was lost. In the book is was more obvious what the message was.
- Nexxxeh 9y ago
  Wasn't the message of Fight Club ostensibly anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist, the exact opposite of the lifestyle of #richkidsofinstagram ?
  - 9y ago

TaylorGood 9y ago

I know of a guy who “pivoted” from exotic car rental operator in Florida to Forex and Drop Shipping coach via Instagram. His Lamborghini, chartered jets and 30k followers really shine but I also know he still buys fake shoes. Wouldn’t trust him with $1. Gary Vaynerchuk is spot on in that there are too many experts and not enough practicioners. Showing others how to make it is how these guys are trying to make it.

gowld 9y ago
I don't think we need more "practitioners" of Forex day-trading and Drop-Shipping arbitrage.
- TaylorGood 9y ago
  Agreed. Just generally focus attached to substance.
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
> Showing others how to make it is how these guys are trying to make it. You don't actually have to know how to make 30K/month. You just have to have enough people watch your video and sign up to buy your $9.99 ebook. The infomercial is 24/7 now. Kevin Trudeau forever, man! /s
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I'll show you how to make €100,000+ per month, just buy my ebook with monthly subscription to my "WWWinners!!11one Club" it's €100,000 per month. Bargain!
giarc 9y ago
I suspect many of these people touting their nearly purchased Lamborghini and the like are actually just renting them. There was a reddit post where a similar "influencer" described the process of faking the purchase. He would go to a showroom and ask to sit in the vehicle and film it. Most of the time, if the salesperson isn't busy they will let you do this. Sometimes even let you start it if they are nice. This influencer would just then record a conversation in another car about buying and taking delivery etc and dub over the video of him in a show room. Pretty straight forward.

fwn 9y ago

This article describes essentially rough influencers that use their social media marketing capabilities to fuel pyramid schemes with cheap high-risk financial products as their fig-leaf. While selling those products is regulated in many markets they apparently seem to get around that through obscurity.

throwawaybo 9y ago

Throwaway because reasons. Worked for one the biggest - and most "respectable" player in this "industry". Between terrible security practices - had to fight for basic stuff that would make any of you grab pitchforks, attempts to get away with as much as they could with regards to regulation and finally the terrible ethics of the system, I didn't last long. Consider spending a few minutes reading this great article https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels-vast-amoral-binary-options-scam-exposed/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-wolves-of-tel-aviv-israels... Most of the big players might have moved away from binary options, they're still the same morally corrupt drain on society.

throwawaybo 9y ago
Also the revenue figures seem quite conservative. 90M seems too low. Probably 2x that.

foobaw 9y ago

Reminds me of the show Billions.

baxtr 9y ago

There was a very interesting post on that topic just a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16953005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16953005

amorphous 9y ago

Slightly OT, but for the rest of us "fake it till you make it" is terrible advice. Because if you don't make it, you have lived a fake life and this will eat on you.

gowld 9y ago
Only if you can't maintain emotional separation. Actors, Doctors, and Lawyers, all legitimate respectable honest jobs, require workers to maintain emotional separation from their work.
triangleman 9y ago
Actually the proverb is sort of short for "have courage through the difficult part and you will be successful in one way or the other". It's not about being fake. The OP title, though, is a play on the term, referring to actual fakeness.

chinathrow 9y ago

Was looking over the shoulders of a guy seting up instagram auto likes via a 3rd party tool the other day. No value added there.

dzonga 9y ago

Nothing new! Same as the Crypto bubble / hype. Seen many people ploughing money because they wanna get rich quick. All because bitcoin or *coin is going up & 'blockchain'.

Nursie 9y ago
Some of the folks in the article are setting themselves up as "Cryptocurrency Gurus" now too. sigh.

Bucephalus355 9y ago

>”I’m never going to work for someone,” Oyefeso says in one of his videos, in a somewhat cartoonish, nasal voice, while he drives his Rolls dressed in a bathrobe.” What’s with this obsession of not working for someone else? American/British managers in particular are some of the most democratic and “least power distance” bosses out there, especially compared to other countries where there is still a very hierarchical management structure. The only time I ever hear now seriously about “your boss is horrible time to quit and start your own business!” or “time to escape cubicle nation!” is with someone selling a particular product.

kradeelav 9y ago
American individualism, I suspect - part of how deeply rooted that mindset is in all the different strata of classes. Proving that you can make it on your own, especially with how "equalizing" social media is on the surface (everyone has an account, the only limit is how you portray yourself!) is a pretty tempting goal to go after for some folks.
_carl_jung 9y ago
> What’s with this obsession of not working for someone else? > someone selling a particular product. You answered your own question.
Nursie 9y ago
Honestly, I don't want to work for someone else, and I've ended up as a consultant/contractor who provides a service on the basis of a completely equal footing with the client. I find it far preferable to being a standard employee, I get more control and usually more respect. Plus, everyone knows it's just a gig, not your life.
RIMR 9y ago
That all depends on what you do. If you have a specific skillset, and your talents and work ethic are obvious to your managers, you can end being mostly self-managed at your job. However, if you have no skills and work a job where your raw output is all that matters, managers will breathe down your neck trying to get the most output out of you as possible. These get-rich-quick schemes prey on those unskilled workers. They promise a world where you have no boss, only work a few hours a week, and make enough money to afford whatever you want. It preys on people's fantasies, and their lack of understanding of how successful people get where they are. If you want to escape your cubicle farm and get a job where you don't hate your boss, teach yourself a valuable skill and seek gainful employment using that skill. But don't ever expect that there's some magic lifehack that let's you stop working and make enough money to afford every luxury you ever wanted. Just because there are some examples of people doing that doesn't mean anything. For every Bitcoin millionaire there are ten Bitcoin bankruptcies. Yet all people have to do is wave around "This is the next big thing", and gullible people will swarm it in hopes of getting in on the ground floor. There's big money in FOMO.

BadassFractal 9y ago

The guy is a small fry. If we're going to point fingers at someone, can we start all the way at the top with someone like Tai Lopez?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sodafountan 9y ago
The difference is that Tai Lopez is just selling knowledge, no different than an audiobook or a college program. The guy in this article is actively participating in a pyramid scheme.
- swiss_beatz 9y ago
  Did you know the "knowledge" thing is a meme? Google Tai Lopez Knowledge

vwcx 9y ago

I was hoping, based on the title, that this was going to address the exploding popularity of people starting IG accounts for their huskies and then claiming the animals are part-wolf. This is a real phenomenon with (albeit smaller) consequences.

bayological 9y ago
LOL

RIMR 9y ago

I am always amazed by how many people get into this "Beat the system and make tons of money" mindset. If there's anything that has proven itself time and time again, it's that people who seek immediate wealth, and who fantasize about their "million dollar idea", are absolutely not the kinds of people who become successful and wealthy. The people who become devoted to a field or a technology - who make the business their passion, and focus on filling a need - these are the people who earn a fortune. You can't just make money by trying really hard to be rich, unless, of course, your business model is funneling cash off of suckers with a predatory get-rich-quick scheme.

icebraining 9y ago
Carnegie and Buffett occur to me as counter-examples that you need to devote yourself to a specific field or technology.
- RIMR 9y ago
  They are the exception, not the rule. Besides, they technically devoted themselves to the field of finance. They didn't just decide one day that they wanted to be billionaires and only work 1 hour per week. They worked their asses off to get where they are today, and the goal wasn't even necessarily to make a fortune...
- espeed 9y ago
  Buffett's field of study is the finance and economic system. It should be easy to see that one of the things that separates Warren Buffett from the rest of us is that he has a unique perspective of the financial world – he sees all of the dynamics and intricacies of the financial world in a way that few others do. It took years for him to build the mental framework that led to his deep understanding and unique view of the world. And as a result of his devotion to this pursuit and his willingness to immerse himself in it, he developed the structural underpinning for the mental vista that yields the rare and valuable perspective that enables him to see the financial world with the clarity of a composer likely unattained by anyone in history. This is why Goldman Sachs calls him when they need help, like they did in the financial crisis.

bomb199 9y ago

When you realize that legitimately becoming rich is such a long shot no matter how great you do, the idea of cheating becomes alluring. Helps if you keep in mind that Jeff Bezos could accidentally tip you enough money to live the rest of your life without a job.

skellera 9y ago
On a 8% average, Bezos makes over $8 billion a year (He has been making more than that). Considering there are 2,208 billionaires according to Forbe's, that is mind blowing that he gains more wealth every year than all but about 2000 people alive HAVE.

swframe2 9y ago

Why worry about the small fish? See how the big boys do it. Check out "The China Hustle" and "Dirty Money" on netflix.

1181207 9y ago

A lot of influencers revolve around the fashion industry on Instagram, Who are contacted by streetwear brands and Designer Labels such as Vetements, Balenciaga and OFF-WHITE... Solely using influencers has pretty much pushed their lines into the eyes of consumers and it's a really good way of getting people to take notice of your business.

_bxg1 9y ago

The number of layers of meaninglessness at play in being a fraudulent media influencer who pretends to be rich so they can make a buck off of selling artificial bets against the abstract perceived value of companies which employ the people who (in some cases) spend their time doing actual real things is staggering.

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